LOWCOUNTRY BOUGHS OF HOLLY

by Susan M. Boyer

  I stepped back around to look at him right side up.

  I pulled my flashlight back out and switched it on, then leaned in to scrutinize his face in the spotlight.

  No. It couldn’t be.

  I leaned closer.

  Damnation.

  I reached in his pockets, searched for identification. They were empty—no wallet and no cell phone. His wrist wore no watch.

  I heard running on hard-packed sand.

  “Who is it?” Blake slowed, walked around to my side of the boat.

  “It’s C. C. Bounetheau.”

  “What? Nah. It can’t be. What would he be doing here?” asked Blake.

  “I have no idea,” I said. “But that…” I gestured at Santa. “…is Charles Calhoun Bounetheau in the flesh. Well, in only the flesh.”

  C. C. Bounetheau was from quite old Charleston money. He and his wife, Abigail, lived in a stately mansion along East Battery overlooking Charleston Harbor. Until recently, their grown twin sons, Peyton and Peter, had lived with them, but Peyton and Peter had recently been incarcerated owing to the culmination of a years-long task force investigation into their import-export business, which involved all manner of illegal drugs, et cetera.

  What on earth was C. C. Bounetheau doing on Stella Maris?

  Was this a simple heart attack or stroke—natural causes? Or did his death have something to do with Peyton and Peter’s crime syndicate? I moved my flashlight across his body slowly.

  Blake stared at C. C. “You check his wallet? Identification?”

  “His pockets are empty. But I’m telling you, it’s him.”

  “You’re absolutely certain?”

  “Yes. I’m certain.” I’d had a one-on-one up-close-and-in-person conversation with C. C. a little over a year ago when Nate and I were investigating his granddaughter’s disappearance. There was no doubt this was him.

  Blake drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I’ll call Warren Harper. Let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves here. He’s bound to be over eighty. His heart probably gave out.”

  That was the precise moment I discovered it was no such thing. “Look. Look at where I’m pointing the flashlight.”

  Blake leaned in for a closer look, then let loose a string of expletives.

  The bloodstain was easy to miss on a red suit in the dark. Upon closer inspection, it was clear C. C. Bounetheau had been shot in the chest.

  Blake called Warren Harper. He was the only doctor who lived in Stella Maris, and he served as our medical examiner. Next Blake radioed Clay Cooper, his second in command. “Coop, we’ve got a body on the beach in front of the bed and breakfast. Grab a tent and meet me here quick as you can. I’ll call Sam and Rodney. Let your mom know she’ll be getting phone calls and we have no comment at this time, but are asking folks to avoid the area.”

  Nell Cooper, Blake’s dispatcher/office manager, was also Clay’s mother.

  Blake turned to me. “Can you and Nate take this?”

  Stella Maris had a small police department with no detectives. Blake was an excellent police chief, but he so rarely needed investigative resources, that when he did, the town had authorized him to contract Nate and me.

  I drew a deep breath, wrestled with the notion. The Bounetheau family wasn’t just in the drug trade. Abigail, C. C.’s wife, had been known to hire out the occasional murder when she needed to expedite something or smooth out a bumpy patch for a family member. She was ruthless and evil to the core. Working any case that involved her family would be inherently dangerous.

  Nate had recently had a case-related close call. If not for Colleen’s sacrifice, he’d be dead. I knew this. I’d had a few close calls myself, which Nate and Daddy held forth about on a regular basis. But we’d made a commitment to the town and to my brother.

  “Of course.” I stepped away from the boat, suddenly all too aware it was a crime scene. I moved back up the beach and sat down in the sand. My mind whirled. C. C.’s grandson used to have an art gallery in downtown Stella Maris. But, as Mamma would say, he’d been called elsewhere. The building had been sold, and a Mexican restaurant now occupied that space. What business did C. C. Bounetheau have on Stella Maris in a Santa Claus suit?

  I knew in my bones it had been him who ran into me the evening before, chased by two other Santas. The voice. I hadn’t placed it at the time, but it had been his voice. Santa’d called me “my dear,” in exactly the same honeyed drawl C. C. had used. I shuddered. How long had that been before he was shot?

  Clay Cooper arrived and erected a white tent to screen the boat, then put up crime scene tape. Moments later, Warren Harper arrived, followed by Sam Manigault and Rodney Murphy, the town’s remaining police officers.

  It was going to be a long day.

  I called Nate. “I need you to come home,” I said when he answered.

  “What’s wrong?” His voice telegraphed his alarm.

  “We have a new case.” I said. “Someone’s shot C. C. Bounetheau. Rhett and I found his body this morning.”

  He fell quiet for a moment, no doubt calculating exactly why we were, against our mutual and emphatic decision, once again working a case involving the Bounetheaus. “Where are you?”

  “In front of the B&B.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Confused, I looked at my watch. It was only 5:50. The ferry hadn’t left yet. It felt like we’d left the house days ago, but it had been less than an hour.

  THREE

  Nate pulled the Navigator to the curb in front of the Bounetheau family home. It occupied a prime piece of Charleston real estate on the corner of East Battery and Atlantic Street, just two houses down from where East Bay becomes East Battery. It reminded me of nothing so much as a very large wedding cake, with its double-tiered semi-circular piazzas, columns, and ornate trim. Originally built in 1856, it had been renovated over the years, but still looked much the same as it had when C. C. Bounetheau’s great-grandfather had it built. The views of the harbor were no doubt breathtaking.

  Historically, the Bounetheau fortune started out in brokering cotton. The family had been able to shift into banking, finance, investments, and things I didn’t understand involving hedge funds and all such as that more recently. These were folks who knew how to make money multiply, and that was just the legal side of the business.

  As far as I knew, C. C. Bounetheau had never been involved in his sons’ illegal enterprises nor his wife’s criminal hobbies. Although, to my mind, he’d enabled both. He wasn’t the most sympathetic victim I’d ever dealt with, but he was a victim nevertheless, and the truth mattered to me. C. C. had a family—children and grandchildren—who would no doubt miss him terribly. His was a life interrupted, violently extinguished. I had a deep-seated need to set that sort of thing right, or at least see justice served.

  I’d met Abigail Bounetheau when her son-in-law, Colton Heyward, hired Nate and me to find his missing daughter. During the course of that investigation, Abigail had seen fit to hire someone to kill us in an effort to keep a family scandal quiet. As C. C. put it, Abigail was well-insulated. There was no way to prove what she’d done. It was a messy case, but that was a whole nother story. Suffice it to say, had Colleen not intervened, Nate and I wouldn’t be here to knock on Abigail’s door with the news of her husband’s death.

  “Are you sure you want to arrive unannounced on a Sunday morning?” Nate asked.

  “No, I’m not at all sure of that,” I said. “But if we call, she’ll decline to see us unless we tell her over the phone that her husband’s dead, which of course we can’t do. Besides, I want to see her reaction. C. C. told me once that although he knew his wife was a sociopathic killer, he was confident she’d never harm him. I wonder if that’s true.”

  “I can’t imagine how he slept at night in the same house with her, let alone the same bed,” said Nate.

&
nbsp; “He seemed to think his will was his insurance policy—that she knew she’d be much better off financially as long as he was alive.”

  “Let’s go see if we can figure out if he lost that bet.”

  We climbed out of the car and approached the street-level wrought-iron gate. I pressed a button on the call box.

  “May I help you?” A man’s voice came over the speaker.

  “Good morning,” I said. “We’re here on behalf of the Stella Maris Police Department. We need to speak with Mrs. Bounetheau on a matter of urgency.”

  “I’m afraid Mrs. Bounetheau is unavailable at present. I’d be happy to pass along a message.”

  “Would you let Mrs. Bounetheau know that we’re here, please? And please tell her that this concerns Mr. Bounetheau.”

  “Which Mr. Bounetheau would that be, Miss?”

  I thought quickly. Abigail was a notoriously protective mother. My experience with her had been that she micromanaged her children’s lives. If she hadn’t killed her husband and had no clue where he was, she wouldn’t connect Stella Maris with anything to do with C. C. But she might be interested in information that could help her sons. I needed to be vague with a slight inference.

  “I’m sorry but that’s confidential,” I said. “If Mrs. Bounetheau wants to hear what we have to say before we contact the task force, it’ll have to be now.”

  Anything task force related, she’d assume had to do with Peter, Peyton, or both.

  “I’ll let Madame know. One moment.”

  Ten minutes later, the voice came back over the speaker. “Mrs. Bounetheau will see you in the morning room. Come through the gate, in the door, and up the stairs. Wait there. Someone will meet you.”

  We did as he said. If I’d ever been inside a grander home, I couldn’t recall it. The scale of it made me feel like I was in a museum. The woodwork likely belonged in one.

  A trim man in khaki pants and a button-down shirt waited at the top of the stairs. He had smooth, pale skin and short-cropped medium brown hair. He had a clean-cut look about him that reminded me of a bike-riding Mormon missionary. “This way.” It was a different voice.

  How many staff members were here on a Sunday morning? I was somewhat relieved there were at least two. There was safety in numbers. Then again, Abigail didn’t do her own dirty work. She hired that out.

  He led us into a room with two sets of tall French doors, a fireplace with a white carved mantel with its own set of columns that reached the ceiling, and a pair of cream-colored sofas. “Please have a seat. Mrs. Bounetheau will join you momentarily. Can I get you anything?”

  “Thank you, no,” I said.

  He nodded and left the room.

  Nate and I sat on the sofa to the right. Moments later, Abigail Bounetheau made her entrance. We stood.

  She was a regal woman, there was no denying it. Her shoulder-length bob had once been a deep chestnut, but was now a lighter shade, probably because it blended better with grey. She didn’t look a day over sixty, but I knew she was eighty years old. In a silk pant suit, she looked comfortable, but put together. Her makeup was flawless.

  She studied Nate, then me. Did recognition flicker in her eyes? Would she remember me? “I’m Abigail Bounetheau. And you are?”

  “I’m Liz Talbot,” I said. “This is my partner, Nate Andrews. We’re here in an official capacity on behalf of the Stella Maris Police Department.”

  “Have I neglected a parking ticket? I can’t recall the last time I was in Stella Maris.”

  Nate said, “Perhaps we should sit down, Mrs. Bounetheau.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Very well.” She took a seat on the sofa across from us, but didn’t settle in. Her posture was impeccably straight.

  I took a deep breath. Death notifications weren’t a normal part of my job, and though I knew Abigail Bounetheau to be capable of unspeakable things, it gave me no pleasure to witness her pain. Assuming C. C.’s death would be painful for her, that is.

  “Mrs. Bounetheau, I’m very sorry to tell you that Mr. Bounetheau has passed away,” I said.

  Something akin to panic passed across her face. A hand rose to her chest. “Peter? Peyton? Which of my sons is dead?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “Neither, ma’am,” I said. “It’s your husband, Charles Bounetheau.”

  Disbelief washed over her face. “I thought you were here regarding my sons.”

  “No, ma’am,” said Nate. “Mr. Charles Bounetheau’s body was discovered on Stella Maris this morning.”

  She shook her head. “There must be a mistake. You’ve confused him with someone else.”

  “I’m afraid not,” I said.

  “Why would C. C. be in Stella Maris?” she asked.

  “We don’t know the answer to that,” said Nate. “We were hoping perhaps you could tell us why he was there.”

  “There’s simply no reason he would be,” she said. “As I told you, there’s been a mistake.” Her expression put us on notice that her word was final.

  I said, “Mrs. Bounetheau, I know this is difficult—”

  “Who identified him?” she demanded. “Anyone could’ve stolen his wallet.”

  Did she know his wallet had been stolen or was this wishful thinking on her part?

  “When’s the last time you saw your husband?” Nate asked.

  She looked around as if searching for an answer, then caught herself, straightened. “I saw him at breakfast yesterday morning.”

  I nodded. “Did he say what his plans were for the day?”

  “He did not. We were not in the habit of reporting to each other every jot and tittle of our daily schedules.”

  “Someone will need to make a formal identification,” I said. “Are you up to doing that?”

  “This is absurd,” she said. “Of course I won’t be making a formal identification of a complete stranger. I’d like to know who suggested this unfortunate man was my husband to begin with.”

  “I did,” I said. “I found his body. I recognized him.”

  Her gaze was cold and hard. “How exactly do you know my husband?”

  “We met last year,” I said. “My partner and I were hired by Mr. Heyward in the matter of your granddaughter’s disappearance.”

  Behind her eyes, the pieces slipped into place. “Ah, yes.” She regarded us without emotion. “I don’t recall your having the occasion to meet my husband.”

  “You weren’t present,” I said.

  Her checks flushed slightly. “Pray tell me why you would meet privately with my husband regarding our granddaughter.”

  Just then I was thinking it was on account of her being evil and all, paying someone to kill us just to keep her dirty laundry in the hamper.

  “Back to the matter at hand,” said Nate. “If you prefer, we can ask someone else to identify Mr. Bounetheau.”

  “I’ve told you,” she said. “My husband is not in Stella Maris dead or alive. Whoever you have there, it’s no concern of mine.”

  “Where is Mr. Bounetheau?” I asked.

  She raised her chin just a fraction. “And that’s no concern of yours. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She stood and left the room.

  Nate looked at me. “Now what?”

  “If we sit here long enough, someone will come to make sure we’ve gone,” I said.

  We didn’t have to wait long. The gentleman who’d shown us in stepped into the room a few moments later. “Shall I show you out, then?”

  I gave him my sunniest smile. “I’m Liz Talbot. This is my partner, Nate Andrews. I didn’t catch your name.”

  “I’m Griffin Ellsworth, one of Mr. and Mrs. Bounetheau’s personal assistants.” He seemed proud of that, perhaps a bit snooty, actually. I wondered what sort of background one had to have to be a personal assistant to the Bounetheaus.

 
“Could you tell me when you last saw Mr. Charles Bounetheau?” I asked.

  “Yesterday, late morning,” he said.

  “Do you happen to know where he is at present?” Nate asked.

  “No,” said Griffin. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Who would be most familiar with his day-to-day comings and goings?” I asked.

  “That would be Dwight Goodnight.” A look of vague distaste passed across Griffin’s face.

  “And he is…?” Nate lifted his chin in question.

  “He’s Mr. Bounetheau’s…attendant,” said Griffin.

  “Where might we find him?” I asked.

  “He lives in the carriage house. However, I doubt very much that he’s there since Mr. Bounetheau isn’t here. If I could just show you out now…” He raised his nose slightly.

  “Certainly.” Nate stood and I followed suit.

  “If we only knew for sure that Mr. Bounetheau isn’t here, that would be helpful.” My smile didn’t falter. Of course, I knew exactly where C. C. Bounetheau was. But either Abigail was in serious denial or she was playing a role. She was an accomplished actress when the need arose. Nevertheless, we needed someone to do a formal identification. Before we approached another family member, we needed someone to acknowledge that C. C. Bounetheau wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

  “He wasn’t at breakfast,” said Griffin.

  “Did Mrs. Bounetheau say he was sleeping in this morning, something along those lines?” asked Nate.

  Amusement rose in Griffin’s eyes, but his lips wore a slight sneer. “She did not. This way, please.” He turned and headed towards the steps, moving with the somewhat uncoordinated movements of one who seldom undertook exercise.

  I might’ve been getting the teensiest bit testy. I sat back down. “Does no one in this house even care that Mr. Bounetheau is dead?”

  Griffin spun towards me. Shock wiped that sneer right off his face. “What did you say?”

  I said, “A man identified as Mr. Bounetheau was found dead this morning. If Mr. Bounetheau is in this house, we need to know it.”

  “He’s not here,” said Griffin.